Mom,

School’s not for me.  I want to see the world.  I’m sorry for leaving like this, but hope you’ll understand someday.

Bethony

The words screamed at me from the paper.  Lies.  She’d be hurt and confused, but what else could I say?  Tell her about the monsters who would come and threaten her for information?  No, she’d go to the police with whatever I wrote.  They’d think I just needed a padded room for a while.

But the people looking for me?  When they came—and they would come—she would probably show them the note hoping they might help find me.  If they thought she knew something more, they would hurt her to get it.  Keeping her in the dark might help keep her safe.  I didn’t even want to tell her that I loved her, fearing they’d see it as leverage.

I left my house, jogging toward the bus stop I knew had pickups heading out of town.  I didn’t turn to look at my house one last time, though I wanted to.  I kept focused on what I needed to do.

Several people stood waiting when I got there.  After asking, I found the next bus wouldn’t arrive for at least another fifteen minutes.  Time enough for the adrenaline, which had been keeping me going, to ease out of my system.  Time enough for the man with an accent to catch up to me.  Time enough for me to give in to the ever-present urge to sleep.

I eyed the people around me. An older crowd, geriatric types.  Generally safe.  But with that man, that thing, chasing me, I couldn’t risk sleeping.

Easing into a squat and leaning back against the pole of the bus stop sign, I struck up a polite conversation with an elderly lady.  She introduced herself as Willa Delson and didn’t seem to mind when my attention wandered or I slurred a few words between yawns.  By the time the bus rolled up, I’d looked at all of the pictures of her grandkids and great grandkids.  Very cute, happy kids.  I hoped they never learned the truth: monsters were real.  If they did, they would never smile at a camera again.

I paid the driver for the farthest stop on his run, a three-hour drive that would take me north.  Having found a friend in Willa, I asked to sit next to her.  Her ticket took her to the same town, so we settled in for a long ride.  She shared the snacks she’d stashed in her handbag and chatted about seeing her newest great grandchild.  Six pounds and seven ounces, Joy Marie Delson wailed her way into the world only a week ago.  My desperation to stay awake had me absorbing Willa’s every word.  At the end of three hours, I could have pretended to be a member of the extensive Delson clan.  My legs twitched with pre-sleep spasms several times, but I didn’t succumb.

The bus dropped us in front of Chris’s Cooking Café.  A sign in the window advertised CCC’s specials at very low prices.  My stomach rumbled.  I couldn’t remember if I had anything for dinner.  My days blurred.

Willa waved goodbye as she spotted her daughter-in-law, the new grandmother, waiting for her.  My stomach growled as I smiled farewell.  Tired was bad enough.  Tired and hungry wouldn’t work.  I couldn’t run—not far anyway—if I didn’t eat.  I strode to the restaurant.  The smell of fryer oil greeted me.  Their prices were low, as advertised, but not fast food low.  Who knew how long I would need to keep moving.  My money wouldn’t last.  I settled on a plain burger from the kids menu.  The waitress gave me a look but let it go.

After devouring my baby burger, I walked to the only motel in town where the waitress said I could find a bus schedule.  The posted schedule showed that the same run that had dropped me here would take me back at the same time the following day.  No thanks.  Other than packing before running, I hadn’t thought very far ahead.  Too tired to concentrate, I decided to sleep a few hours and then think of a plan.

The man behind the desk eyed me when I asked for a room.  The need to sleep coated me in a thick film giving the world a surreal quality. I knew I’d fall hard and worried what would happen if I started screaming.  I decided to tell him that I suffered from night terrors.  The clerk stared at me and took a second look at my fake ID while I tried not to fidget.  Finally, he gave me a bill along with the key.

I needed to plan where to go from here, but the bed swallowed me whole as soon as I closed the door.  My exhaustion didn’t give me a chance to enjoy the feeling.  Immediately, images of a dark haired girl surfaced behind my closed eyes.  Crap.  I didn’t want to die again.

She stood panting at the edge of a cliff, staring straight ahead at nothing.  The craggy face of the rock dropped steeply to the tree-filled valley below.  Moonlight highlighted each rock and scrub brush.

The details soaked into me, and the perspective shifted as usual.  I slipped further into the dream, becoming her.

Clutching my hands together, I could imagine each scratch and break my body would suffer.  I looked down at a large rip in the forearm of my leather tunic.  Dark clotting blood from a vicious bite glistened in the silvery light.

An eerie cry echoed behind me.  My panicked heart slowed as I made a decision.  I turned from the cliff to watch my pursuers silently emerge from the trees and close the distance.  Sleek, furred heads rose to howl together in triumph.

The leader slowly loped forward, shifting forms as he approached. His paws widened and fingers emerged where pads once existed.  Black claws shrank and flattened into human nails.  Fur receded into skin as bones popped and reshaped giving the forelimbs a human appearance.  As soon as his feet developed, he reared back to stand on his morphing legs.

Snuffling through his shrinking snout, he spoke before his tongue fully changed.  It garbled his words, but I still understood him.

“Amusing chase, but it is time to choose.  We will keep you safe as they couldn’t.”

Safe?  Rage boiled in my heart.  One of them had bit me during their attack on my village, a poor example of their care for me.  Did he honestly think he could persuade me to go with them?  They were unnatural.  Evil.  The dark glint in his eyes showed it.  I saw only one outcome.

“I choose death,” I said savagely as I pushed off with my feet doing a backward dive off the cliff’s edge.  Inside I screamed with fear.

I felt each bounce against the rocky surface until my neck broke bringing dark respite.

Warmth blanketed me, weighing me down comfortably.  Something gentle pressed briefly against my forehead.  I felt comforted as the dream shifted.  I didn’t want to witness another death.  I tried to surface, but I was in too deep.

Tall stalks of grass and wild flowers swayed in the gentle breeze.  To the west, the sun’s dying rays painted the sky.  A single furrowed dirt track, perhaps made by game, followed the edge of the woods to the east. The air smelled fresh and crisp with no hint of pollution.

In this dream, I drifted as a bodiless bystander without someone else’s thoughts or feelings pushing into me as if my own.  I observed the area, curious about the change in perspective.

A circle of stones crowned a patch of barren earth in the middle of the wind-ruffled grasses.  Seven women stood within.  I could see them clearly.  One of them had a round, distended stomach, very large with child, and she was dressed better than the rest.  Her taupe gown, a thin flowing material, molded itself to her belly in the breeze.  The rest knelt in a half circle before her, dressed in rough skins and furs.  Dirt dusted their skin and matted hair.

The pregnant one spoke in a guttural tongue.  It took a moment for her words to make any sense.

“These I give onto you for your protection.”

The speaker motioned for the woman to her right to come to her.  The woman stood and approached the one in the taupe gown, her steps hesitant.  The woman in taupe gave a small encouraging smile.  Her eyes held so many emotions: concern, sadness, hope...